Grand jury refuses to indict Dr. Anna Pou

Closing one of the most sensational chapters in post-Katrina New Orleans, Dr. Anna Pou said Tuesday that she fell to her knees and thanked God when she learned that a grand jury had refused to charge her with murdering patients in dark, fetid Memorial Medical Center in the nightmarish days after the hurricane struck on Aug. 29, 2005.

Speaking at an afternoon news conference in a voice choked with emotion, Pou did not smile or gloat over the end of an ordeal that began when she and two nurses were arrested a year and a week ago.

STAFF PHOTO BY ELIOT KAMENITZSpeaking at the Marriot Convention Center hotel, a tearful Dr. Anna Pou speaks to the media about the no true bill rendered for her by the Grand Jury Tuesday, July 24, 2007.

"This is not a triumph, but a moment of remembrance for those who lost their lives during the storm and those who stayed at their posts to serve those in need," she said, reading from a brief prepared statement.

Pou still faces four civil suits in connection with the deaths, but her colleagues cheered the end of the criminal case. So did the Louisiana State Medical Society and the American Medical Association, both of which issued statements saying Pou, who never was charged in the deaths, should not have been arrested.

Pou "courageously performed her duties as a physician under the most challenging and horrific conditions," the state society said in its statement. "The decisions she made were in the best interests of the patients."

Arrested with Pou, a head and neck surgeon who specializes in reconstructive surgery, were nurses Cheri Landry and Lori Budo. State Attorney General Charles Foti accused the three of murder in the deaths of nine patients in LifeCare Hospital, a section of the Uptown medical center reserved for frail patients. Foti, who contended the three had administered lethal injections of painkillers and sedatives, turned over the case to Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan. The grand jury was sworn in in March, but Jordan said he did not start presenting the case until May.

Originally, the three women were accused of killing four patients, but that number grew to nine. Thirty-four patients were reported to have died before the hospital was evacuated.

Landry and Budo were given immunity in return for their grand jury testimony.

'Not a true bill'

The criminal case came to a dramatic conclusion Tuesday morning in Criminal District Judge Calvin Johnson's courtroom.

First, Johnson read an indictment that accused Pou of helping to kill nine patients. Then he read what Valerie Rogers, the grand jury's forewoman, had written on the back of the indictment paperwork: "Not a true bill," which means the jury refused to charge Pou.

Nine grand jurors must agree to deliver an indictment. Because grand jury proceedings are conducted in secret and participants are forbidden to discuss them, there was no way to determine how the jurors voted.

"I think justice has been served with due process," Jordan said Tuesday. "I think the grand jury did the right thing. The grand jury considered all the evidence -- carefully considered. .$?.$?. They concluded no crime had been committed."

"To me, that's the end of the case, and I hope the attorney general accepts that," said Rick Simmons, Pou's attorney, who appeared with his client at her news conference.

Assistant Attorney General Julie Cullen, who participated in the special grand jury proceedings along with Jordan's prosecutors, Michael Morales and Craig Famularo, left the courthouse at Tulane and Broad with little to say about Pou.

"It's our position that it was homicide," Cullen said.

Asked what would become of Pou's reputation now that the criminal investigation yielded no charge, Cullen said, "I guess that depends on who's considering it."

Defiance grows

Foti's demeanor seemed to change as the day wore on.

Shortly after the failure to indict was announced, he said, "I am very proud of our efforts on behalf of the victims and their families."

Louisiana DA Charles Foti

But by the afternoon, he was defiant, saying the grand jury had erred. He blamed Jordan, saying prosecutors failed to present important witnesses who could have supported a murder indictment. At his own press conference in Baton Rouge, Foti gave reporters lengthy written analyses from medical experts who had concluded the deaths were homicides.

Foti said the grand jury didn't hear from a number of critical experts, including a forensic pathologist. Additionally, he said, Jordan's team presented none of the dead patients' family members to testify.

Foti also said that Pou drew public sympathy via a publicity campaign and that he hasn't forgotten the patients who died at Memorial.

"You know, one's reputation in the community does not shelter one from potential illegal activities," he said. "No one talks about the victims. The victims. Nine people that died. It is the duty of the attorney general to represent these victims."

Foti said the patients could have been saved.

"At 11 o'clock on Thursday, Sept. 1, while the hospital was being evacuated, both by boat and helicopters, all nine of those people were alive," he said. "By 5 o'clock, when the last person was removed from the hospital, all nine of those people were dead."

Simmons countered that Foti's investigation was a misguided attempt to blame medical personnel for a disaster caused by government failures.

"The certificates of death for these individual patients should read, at least, 'abandoned by their government,'$?" Simmons said. "Anybody with a television set knows the cause of death."

'No one better'

At the news conference, where Pou spoke into a thicket of microphones, she refused to criticize Foti.

"I'm putting Mr. Foti in God's hands," she said. "He has to live with the decisions that he made."

When asked whether she would resume her practice, Pou's answer was swift: "In a heartbeat. ... As soon as possible, as far as I'm concerned."

And she said she would ride out another hurricane in a hospital because "there's no one better ... than those of us who were here at the hospital during Katrina."

Pou has worked since the storm at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. Her boss, Dr. Daniel Nuss, who had recruited her, called the grand jury's decision "a huge, huge leap forward."

"Knowing the three people, I knew that the charges were egregious," Nuss said.

Pou said she isn't sure when she will return to work because she wants to spend time with her family. Many of her 10 brothers and sisters stood with her Tuesday afternoon in a meeting room of a Warehouse District hotel.

Even though Pou has been under scrutiny for more than a year, she said she never felt like a victim.

"People who know me know the type of person that I am and the type of physician that I am," she said.

New names announced

Pou and the nurses were among the medical personnel on hand at Memorial Medical Center during and after the monster storm. Thirty-four patients were reported to have died before the evacuation of the eight-story, 317-bed Napoleon Avenue facility, which became an island surrounded by 15 feet of floodwater. Although it was envisioned as a haven, the hospital lost electricity and became sweltering as the temperature inside hit 110 degrees.

Initially, the grand jury hearing the hospital case had 12 members, but there were only 10 Tuesday because one member had died and another was missing, court personnel said.

The grand jury named nine dead patients, including five whose names hadn't surfaced last year when Foti first announced the arrests of Pou, Landry and Budo.

The original four patients were Emmett Everett, 61; Ireatha Watson, 89; Hollis Alford, 66; and Rose Savoie, 90. But the grand jury also heard testimony about the deaths of Harold Dupas, Elanie Nelson, Alice Hutzler, Wilda McManus and George Huard.

Each count of the now-nullified indictment said the deaths occurred Sept. 1, 2005, but listed no other details.

'A wild goose chase'

The investigation elicited outrage from the New Orleans medical community, which organized a protest last week to mark the one-year anniversary of Pou's arrest.

More than 1,000 people showed up last week at the Peristyle at City Park in support of Pou and the fragile health care system that is still recovering post-Katrina.

On Tuesday, they were jubilant.

"I'm so, so happy," said Dr. Isabel Ochsner, a longtime friend of Pou's. "She did nothing but help people, and she did not deserve to go through what she went through, but I'm sure she's becoming a stronger angel."

Dr. Brobson Lutz, a former city health director who, like Pou, had worked at Memorial, called the investigation "a wild goose chase."

"I hope Foti realizes how much time he's wasted," Lutz said.

The AMA released a statement that said Pou, as well as other doctors who stayed behind to help patients, "served as bright lights during New Orleans' darkest hour."

The grand jury's decision confirmed "what we've been saying all along, that no crimes were committed by these heroes of the storm," said Edward Castaing Jr., Budo's attorney.

Last week, Pou sued the state and Foti, demanding that Louisiana provide her with a legal defense against several wrongful-death lawsuits filed against her in connection with her work at Memorial during the Katrina disaster.

In the suit, filed in state court in Baton Rouge, Pou said Foti played politics with the Katrina dead and her career, trying to make her alone pay for the slow federal response to New Orleans that nightmarish week after the hurricane struck and the levees broke.

Memorial Medical Center has been closed since the storm, and it has a new name. The 81-year-old hospital, known for 67 years as Southern Baptist Hospital, was sold last year to the Ochsner medical empire and was renamed Ochsner Baptist Medical Center.

Gwen Filosa can be reached at gfilosa@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3304. John Pope can be reached at jpope@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3317.